How much of Papa Married a Mormon by John D. Fitzgerald is fiction? Was Tom, his brother, a member of the church or not? Sources? Thanks!

-Historian

A:

Dear you,

Unfortunately, we haven't been able to find a lot of information on this. This website, Finding Fitzgerald, is dedicated to learning more about his life. You might find it interesting, or even reach out to the author on their contact page.

I did a lot of research on this, but I wasn't able to find anything conclusive about whether Tom was a member of the Church or not, so probably reaching out to the author of the website Zed shared is your best bet. From what I can tell, John D. Fitzgerald wrote Papa Married a Mormon as a sort of autobiography, so I would assume he wouldn't make up facts about his family. While it's possible and even probable that the book isn't 100% factual, because bias creeps into virtually everyone's writing, it's more likely that that bias affects smaller details rather than descriptions of his family members. With that in mind, I would assume it's true that Tom was a member of the church. Then again, a lot of sources I read said that John himself was actually much more like the Great Brain persona than Tom was, so I have no idea how much of what Fitzgerald wrote was some sort of fact/fiction hybrid.

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